…They represent federal presence in rural communities
BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara says no amount of blackmail will force the National Assembly (NASS) to abandon Zonal Intervention Projects.
He said the zonal projects are tools deployed by the NASS to ensure equity in project allocation across the country.
The Speaker said though the instrumentality of zonal intervention projects has been grossly misunderstood and terribly maligned, the fact remains that it has engender development across all federal constituencies with federal presence now felt in most remote and forgotten areas nationwide.
Speaking at the public hearing organised by the Joint Committees on Appropriation of the Senate and the House of Representatives, Hon Dogara said, “Over the years, the efforts of legislators, especially at the National Assembly, to inject equity in budget patronage nationwide through the instrumentality of zonal intervention projects has been grossly misunderstood and terribly maligned mostly by those who are deliberately ignorant and have concocted their own concept of constituency projects which they apply as their yardstick of measurement.
“I make bold to state that, but for Zonal Intervention Projects, many communities in Nigeria would never have enjoyed any form of Federal Government patronage. Put differently, zonal intervention projects represent the only evidence of Federal government presence in most rural communities of Nigeria.”
According to him, “as representatives of the people, no amount of blackmail from any quarters will force us to abandon our resolve to ensure even development across all federal constituencies.”
Speaker Dogara urged all stakeholders, and Nigerians, who are showing more interest in the budget making process, to pay greater attention to the implementation of approved budget than the size because only effective budget implementation determines its quality.
Insisting that the time has come for Nigerians to “Demand strict accountability from all elected officials on this matter”, Dogara said; “Jacob Lew captured the issue succinctly when he said, ‘The budget is not just a collection of numbers, but an expression of our values and aspirations.’ The citizen must therefore insist on the total realisation of these values and aspirations rather than merely the collection of figures.”
